Tag Archives: European Women’s Chess Championship

From May 19 to 30 2015 the 16th European Women`s Chess Championship was carried out. 98 participants, 9 of which grandmasters, from 19 countries attended the event. Georgia was represented by 28 players, better than any other participating nation, followed by Russia (17) and Azerbaijan (13). The average ELO-rating amounted to 2255 points.

After 11 rounds and a little agitation (see paragraph below), Natalia Zhukova (UKR) who had been first female European Champion in 2000 was announced winner. Nino Batsiashvili (GEO) who currently ranks 17th in worldwide rankings of active female players took home the silver medal.

Rumanian player Mihaela Sandu (ELO 2300) caused a stir at the tournament. Unexpectedly, she won the first five matches and lost the sixth, after the live stream had disconnected at her board. Thus, she fell from grace with the other participants who accused her of cheating. The accusations were firmly rejected plavix dosage by those who organized the event but seemed to be supported by the outcome of the following rounds. Due to protesting participants the live stream was delayed from cialis dosage the 8th round forward. In rounds 8,9,10, and 11 viagra online the Rumanian player was constantly inferior to her opponents, lost all matches and held an unaltered account of 6 points. Sandu was indignant with the damage of her reputation. Whether she was on the best way to score big as an underdog, her performance weakened because of the psychological pressure imposed by her opponents, or she actually cheated could not be clarified. In every way, this incident is not contributing to Sandu’s integrity.

From July 5th to 18th the Novotel in Plovdiv, Bulgaria hosted the 15th edition of the European Individual Women’s Championship.

Every national Chess Federation was allowed to send any number of players to the championship, completely independent from titles or rankings. The only precondition was the membership in a Chess Federation that is included in the European Chess Federation.

116 participants from 26 nations competed in the event. Russia was represented by the largest number of competitors (24), followed by Bulgaria (15), and Azerbaijan (10).

The entire prize money fund of 60,000€ was split amongst the participants on the first 20 ranks. The winner received an award of 11,000€, whilst the second and third place were bestowed with 9,000€ and 7,000€.

Next to the prize money, the qualification for the World Championship was a powerful incentive for high-class performances. 14 starting slots were assigned for the next World Championship that will be carried out in the knock-out mode next year

The competitors played 11 rounds in Swiss Tournament System, in each of which they were given 90 minutes for the first 40 moves and 30 minutes for the rest of the duel.

First rank was obtained by the 25 year-old Russian player Valentina Gunina with 9 out of 11 points. Only half a point short was her Russian colleague Tatiana Kosintseva who was followed by Salome Melia from Georgie with 8 points. Mariya Muzychuk (Ukraine) also scored 8 points and came off 4th in final rankings. None of the four German competitors were able to secure higher ranks, but placed in the top half of the table.